FORT WALTON BEACH — Amos Taylor sits in the leather recliner with IV tubes in his arms to create a circuit to the humming white machine next to him that cleans and returns his blood.
Over the past two decades he has spent more than 8,000 hours in dialysis.
As a young man, he was diagnosed with rapidly progressive glomerulonephritis, a disease that makes his kidneys unable to clean and filter blood.
Two kidney transplants have failed, which leaves him with few options other than three four-hour dialysis sessions a week.
Taylor says it’s easy to become frustrated, but he sees dialysis as a treatment that lets him live a full life.
“I don’t let it be a determining factor in my life,” Taylor said.
Over the intermittent beeps from the machines around him, the Florida Gator fan railed on one nurse for his love of the Alabama Crimson Tide, chatted with a doctor about his day and laughed as he swapped stories with a longtime friend at Fresenius Medical Care on Mar Walt Drive.
Taylor, a 51-year-old math teacher at Meigs Middle School, often uses the time at the center to unwind after a day with his students.
Juggling teaching and treatments can be stressful, but Taylor said he decided long ago not to let dialysis hamper his life.
“Many situations in life we can’t control,” he said. “But we can control how we accept it and look at it and how it affects our lives.”
Celebrating each day
Taylor snapped the overhead projector off and the equation disappeared from the wall.
Three of his students glanced at the digital clock that read 1:19 p.m. — about 30 minutes before the end of the day.
“What was the answer?” Taylor asked.
A few incorrect responses were offered as the students looked over their notes.
“You guys aren’t paying attention,” Taylor said as he looked around his classroom. “You’re asleep.”
The students began to straighten up and hurriedly flip through their notebooks.
“You’re answering ‘Yes, Mr. Taylor’ ‘No, Mr. Taylor,’ ” Taylor said, drawing out the words in an exaggerated, weary tone as his eyes rolled sky high.
A wave of giggles swept through the classroom.
“Twenty-three over seven,” answered a student in the back.
“That’s right,” Taylor said as a smile spread across his previously stern face. “Goodness, brothers!”
Projects, student art, Gator memorabilia and motivational posters paper Taylor’s classroom. Models of muscle cars line the top of back shelves stuffed with books and binders. A large fish tank sits in one corner of the room with a desk and chair.
Rowdy students or those who are having a bad day sit at that desk, Taylor said. The fish help them calm down and focus.
Taylor has learned a number of tricks over his 19 years as a teacher. He loves his job and his students.
“It’s an opportunity to influence them,” Taylor said. “Help them decide they want to be good students and good citizens and help push them to that direction.”
During the first week of school every year, Taylor explains his condition to the students, who usually are curious about the scars on his arms. They typically ask about how it works and how long it takes.
After learning about dialysis, students become more empathetic. They understand why a test isn’t graded right away or why he needs them to concentrate on a day he feels sick.
He uses his situation to teach his students life lessons.
“Birthdays are only celebrated on the day you’re born,” Taylor tells students. “I celebrate my life every day.”
School and home
Taylor arrives at Meigs by 6:30 a.m. to start preparing for the day. By 7 a.m., students are making their way into class. His subject doesn’t really allow for reading time, so Taylor is “on” for the day.
“You are constantly going,” he said.
The students are dismissed at 1:45 p.m. Taylor stays until at least 2:20 grading papers, holding parent-teacher conferences or meeting with other teachers or the director of the math department.
On the days he has dialysis, he tries to relax before heading to Fresenius Medical Care. He usually goes straight there because the center is on his way home.
By 3:30 p.m., he is at the center and ready to spendthe next four hours watching TV, napping, reading or working on a Sudoku. When the dialysis is finished, he’s usually too tired to do anything but head home for some dinner.
He tries to keep school and home separate. When he began teaching, he would bring work home with him and spend nights and weekends grading homework and tests. Now, his grading is done at school.
“You get to a point where if you don’t separate one life from another, it’ll all bleed together,” Taylor said.
Living the good life
Thanks to Fresenius Medical Care, Taylor can have treatments anywhere. He loves to travel, and the Fresenius arranges for dialysis at a local center wherever he vacations.
One summer, the center arranged for him to have dialysis at seven vacation spots. Another summer, it sent him a gift to his dialysis center in Hawaii for his 50th birthday.
A lot of people associate dialysis with the end of their life, said Nancy Grigsby, Taylor’s longtime friend and the treatment options specialist at Fresenius. She uses Taylor as an example for those who find the treatments frustrating or upsetting.
Taylor makes dialysis only one aspect of a full, happy and productive life, she said.
“He shows people they can do this,” Grigsby said.